


with a map charting dark water

by grit



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Physical Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 08:44:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18443060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grit/pseuds/grit
Summary: And then, unassuming like interior up until this point, the daughter almost tripped over herself pouring the Hyuuga's tea.





	with a map charting dark water

Sakura is a professional. She carved herself a place in this business, walking across dreams and whisking the sight of them away like clockwork. An architect armed with a degree in psychology, she builds and bargains for more than she anticipated.

 

There is nothing she wants for herself. She targets the people who cross her clients, utterly taken by the rush of stripping people apart to steal their secrets and sell them. She needs her work like a fish needs water, and after years and years of fighting tooth and nail to walk where she walks now she has little patience left for something as bland as violations of ethics.

 

Sakura is a shark out for information, leashed by nothing and no one, and she revels in her freedom. 

 

There are no glass walls to her tank: there's just the open sea.

 

Her perspective spirals out of proportions when she watches her newest client backhand his daughter. He didn't acknowledge her at all before, conversing neutrally with Yamato, Sakura's second. She had met him in Konoha six years ago and long since roped him into dealing with unpleasant people in her stead. He's as good at his job as Sakura is.

 

Yamato had talked quietly but with an appropriately threatening edge to his voice even then, under the scrutiny of a man who walked over his own twin's cold body to get where he was. 

 

And then, unassuming like interior up until this point, the daughter almost tripped over herself pouring the Hyuuga's tea.

 

“Set the tray down, daughter,” he said, and the young woman placed it on the table with trembling hands, soft and pale, and perfectly manicured.

 

Sakura wondered what was happening, and it was like her team and her weren't there at all, and you get used to fading into the background around clients and their family, trust and sealed lips were bought and paid for upfront, after all.

 

A broker's codename carries a lot of weight, and even more so does the work they do unflinchingly.

 

Sakura is named after her hair, Kakashi had chosen it and then he'd thrown her to the wolves with no training, barely a little girl, a restless lamb lost on the side of the road. 

 

She hasn't forgiven him for that, and she doubts she ever will, but she is stronger for it now. She'd rid herself of her white pelt and started hunting wolves, clawing and ripping her way to the top.

 

That's where she stands now, with all the weight her name carries suddenly dropping on her shoulders, tying her down. The Hyuuga's hand connects with a cold sharp force that is horrifying to see and even worse to hear. The daughter's cheek reddens and she bows her head in shame.

 

It shouldn't affect her the way it does, not with the life Sakura led. 

 

The Hyuuga flicks his wrist listlessly and tells his daughter to leave. But before she can untangle her limbs from the ridiculous dress she's wearing, Sakura signs at Sai to stay back and surges forward, flipping over the table and the gleaming silverware in one smooth motion, courtesy of Kakashi's hellish training.

 

She is at the other end of the room in a flash, pinning the Hyuuga down with her right hand wrapped around his throat, a blade ready in her left.

 

“Tell me,” she purrs, almost lovingly stroking the carving knife that was stuck in the duck half a moment ago, “what gives you the right to treat a woman like that, let alone your own daughter?”

 

He struggles against her grip with a grunt, eyes darting around wildly and focusing on his daughter. “Hinata –“

 

She staggers backwards, fear written across her face like poetry. Sakura wants to make it go away.

 

She deals the Hyuuga a blow to the side of the face, satisfied in knowing that it will bruise, that it will shame. “Sai,” she calls.

 

He walks up to her calmly. “Sakura.”

 

“How about a little of that new stuff we got from Orochimaru?”

 

Sai shrugs, a jerky thing, and reaches in his coat pocket. He pulls out a syringe filled with clear liquid, and Hinata almost shouts, “No!”

 

All eyes zoom in on her. “You cannot poison him,” she finishes weakly before she can stop herself. These people are dangerous, dangerous business partners her father is careful not to talk about, but this sudden violent behavior supports the oppressive terror painting murder in her head.

 

The woman – Sakura – throws her head back and laughs. “Please,” she insists. “Your father's just going to get a taste of his own medicine.”

 

Hinata lifts her chin stubbornly, suddenly filled with righteous anger. “You cannot just do this.”

 

“Calm down,” one of the men, not-Sai, tells her. “Sakura will not hurt him. Not like that.”

 

Hinata's hands white-knuckle around her waist, arms crossed as if that would shield her. Are they going to kill her next? What about Hanabi, three rooms down the hallway, busy with her calligraphy lesson? If she begs, will they leave her alive?

 

Her fingernails dig into her flesh and she feels like crying.

 

“I'm going to keep him company,” Sakura tells her.

 

Hinata freezes, unable to do anything but watch as Sai injects her father with the liquid, as he goes slack and Sakura steps away from him and calmly tucks the knife away in her boot. “He's just sleeping,” she explains, turning towards Hinata, and she's honest with her, because Hinata can see his chest rising and falling with his heartbeat. 

 

Sakura's next words change everything, “I'm going to enter his dreams and turn all of them into nightmares.”

 

Hinata furrows her brows in confusion, but doesn't dare question the other woman, shuddering.

 

Some part of her is not bothered by the dark promise Sakura made. 

 

Dream walking. She's heard whispers of it, hushed conversations stashed between servants, folded stacks of linen and the smell of flesh laundry.

 

What Sakura talks of so nonchalantly, a gleam in her eyes that speaks of ferocity and freedom: a tint of adventure to the quirk of her lips. She defended her from her father's anger, took _her_ side like no one ever openly dared.

 

Somehow, Hinata believes her. She shouldn't place her trust this woman, this stranger – but she does, and it's not just because she owes a debt.

 

“Let me show you what a dream looks like from the inside,” Sakura suddenly says, a hand extended, and it's an offer, a once-in a lifetime offer, and here's this person staring up at her like she's worth something other than being dolled up and presented like a piece of flesh –

 

Hinata is a woman caged, that is her birthright. She closes her eyes and sees the vibrant colors of a world that's all her own. They flutter open, and she grasps Sakura's hand like she would a lifeline, because to her, it is one.

 

“Okay,” she breathes madly, letting go, and it's all she ever wanted.

 

She falls in line beside her, stretching her legs in a reality that bows and bends out of its squeaking hinges for them. 


End file.
